Aren't some of the alien species from planets well within the borders of the Imperium? (I don't have any of those books on hand at the moment and the articles on Wikipedia don't seem to mention any homeworlds. ???)

I have heard of only one mistake that doesn’t have an explanation for a careful reader...with an open mind. (And, no, I’m not going to tell you what it is!) —KJA

I don't like every writer's style; for instance, I have never been able to get through Ursula LeGuin, China Mieville, or Iain Banks, all of whom are critical darlings. —KJA

I...had written a bunch of Star Wars and X-Files books...that proved not just that I'm a hack, but that I could write in somebody else's universe... —KJA

I think its safe to say that Franks other series were seperate, and only conected by their themes. I think if Frank Herbert was going to do a book about the origins of Dune and the TBJ he would have done it. Personally I think Frank intentionally made TBJ vague, there is a lot of power in mystique. But I like the DE's version of TBJ, well much better than the cheesy Matrix/Terminator meets Star Wars abortion KJA and BH made. I definately think it was a philosophical strugle over an actual war between man and machine (in the Terminator sense). I think TBJ was indeed a conflict, but a conflict between people and people and their machines (people with machines and capitolizing on the complacency of the general populatiom using the machines or something like that). Some of you guys have been questioning the logistics of such a conflict (how a minority anti-machine orginization could win), but it clearly had a religious element, and religion spreads. I imagine the old Empire was much more cynical than the "Modern Day" Dune with people putting faith in machines before god. But maybe something terrible happend that made people turn to their gods (the Fox Hole Atheist argument, caused by the men with machines going too far and becoming more overt/A natural disaster/Something fabricated by the Jihadis?), then become infected by the religious propergated anti-machine thought?

"The target of the Jihad was a machine-attitude as much as the machines," Letosaid. "Humans had set those machines to usurp our sense of beauty, our necessaryselfdom out of which we make living judgments. Naturally, the machines weredestroyed."~GEoD

Paul of Dune was so bad it gave me a seizure that dislocated both of my shoulders and prolapsed my anus.~Pink Snowman

In fact, there are just enough hints and implicit information in Frank's books to figure out that the Butlerian Jihad was something completely different from the cheap Star Wars: The Clone Wars ripoff presented by our magnificent duo [honestly, the Legends books are unreadable; I've stopped after a few pages, where every 5th paragraph (oh, and each paragraph is only 4-5 sentences long at best) was a recounting of what just happened, or at least started with a Captain Obvious-statement (guess KJA has to remind himself what he's talking about while dictahiking his stuff, like, "Where was I?.. Right, ok, so, the cymeks..." etc. etc. ad nauseum)].

WHAT IF YOU NO LONGER HEAR THE MUSIC OF LIFE?MEMORIES ARE NOT ENOUGH UNLESS THEY CALL YOU TO NOBLE PURPOSE!

(oh, and each paragraph is only 4-5 sentences long at best) was a recounting of what just happened, or at least started with a Captain Obvious-statement (guess KJA has to remind himself what he's talking about while dictahiking his stuff, like, "Where was I?.. Right, ok, so, the cymeks..." etc. etc. ad nauseum)].

Their writing reminds me of the essays I had to write in school for Creative writing 101 where the teacher told you, "I don't care what you write about or even if it's accurate, just make sure you have and intro paragraph, a body and a conclusion, make sure your paragraphs have the proper sentances in each, too."

Paul of Dune was so bad it gave me a seizure that dislocated both of my shoulders and prolapsed my anus.~Pink Snowman

SandChigger wrote:Why does it take humankind 11,000 years to rid itself of the crutch of computers and AI?

Was AI a relatively new development that pushed the situation to a crisis?

Or were there other factors in it?

What do you think?

SandChigger wrote:So you both think that stagnation was also one of the factors behind the Butlerian Jihad?

I also think that stagnation was what principally led to the BJ, just as it did for Muad'dib's jihad.

Dune wrote:He remained silent, thinking like the seed he was, thinking with the raceconsciousness he had first experienced as terrible purpose. He found that he nolonger could hate the Bene Gesserit or the Emperor or even the Harkonnens. Theywere all caught up in the need of their race to renew its scattered inheritance,to cross and mingle and infuse their bloodlines in a great new pooling of genes.And the race knew only one sure way for this--the ancient way, the tried andcertain way that rolled over everything in its path: jihad.

This, to me, is an almost direct allusion to the BJ being the last instance of a jihad caused by the race consciousness recognized by the BG and then by Paul (and probably by some others). This race consciousness is simply the revolt of the human spirit against stagnation and in systemization controlling life. The reason why I take the BJ to be the jihad being referred to as "tried and certain" is because so far any jihad or crusade we've seen on Earth cannot possibly be classified as "tried and certain" in terms of the success of its results. And if there had been a monumental jihad between now and the BJ then Frank obviously didn't deem it worth mentioning. I conclude that this passage refers to the BJ specifically.

The answer to why it took 11,000 years for mankind to decide to crusade against machines must be that that's exactly how long it took before all the expansion and novelty came to a close and things settled. Whether things in the Old Empire settled into a real unmoving stagnation, or whether things continued to change but in completely predictable patterns, probably wouldn't have mattered much to Frank in terms of effective difference. Don't forget that it wasn't the existence of machines that would cause a revolt, it was the stagnation that finally came that did it. Thousands of years of having computers, star charting, etc, wouldn't have given rise to any desire as a species to revolt - thus there was no 'slowness' in finally getting around to destroying machines. But once man realized his entire life was being run in machine-like regularity, organized in an unchanging schedule, and that there were no surprises anymore, the 'machine-thinking' that this entails would lead man to concretize his slavishness into the machines themselves being responsible. But in reality the problem was man, who wanted life to become more and more convenient and simplified. By revolting against the physical machines man also revolted against machine-thinking, systemization, and to giving the thinking mind over to any other force that would think for it. I see all too often today people 'losing their brains' in their Ipads, and it is emotionally tempting for me to blame the Ipads for it and wish they'd all go out the window. But at the same time I must recognize that it is the user's choice that allows the Ipad to dominate one's attention, as evidenced by the fact that I don't have one. If I was going to mount a crusade against "flushing your brain down the toilet" I might well start by banning Ipads, even though they are a symptom and not the cause.

Dune Messiah wrote:But his mood had changed. "You can't build politics on love," he said."People aren't concerned with love; it's too disordered. They prefer despotism.Too much freedom breeds chaos. We can't have that, can we? And how do you makedespotism lovable?""You're not a despot!" she protested, tying her scarf. "Your laws are just.""Ahh, laws," he said. He crossed to the window, pulled back the draperies asthough he could look out. "What's law? Control? Law filters chaos and what dripsthrough? Serenity? Law -- our highest ideal and our basest nature. Don't looktoo closely at the law. Do, and you'll find the rationalized interpretations,the legal casuistry, the precedents of convenience. You'll find the serenity,which is just another word for death."

PS - No offence intended to any of you who have been taken over by Ipads...

(oh, and each paragraph is only 4-5 sentences long at best) was a recounting of what just happened, or at least started with a Captain Obvious-statement (guess KJA has to remind himself what he's talking about while dictahiking his stuff, like, "Where was I?.. Right, ok, so, the cymeks..." etc. etc. ad nauseum)].

Their writing reminds me of the essays I had to write in school for Creative writing 101 where the teacher told you, "I don't care what you write about or even if it's accurate, just make sure you have and intro paragraph, a body and a conclusion, make sure your paragraphs have the proper sentances in each, too."